Met. Dept. digital display gives stale data

The Meteorology Department’s digital display erected within its premises that had been installed to show the daily weather patterns in Colombo was seen displaying ‘0’mm as the rainfall, even during the torrential rains that fell yesterday.

A photo which showed this peculiar phenomenon was captured by a passer-by.

When contacted, an official of the Department said the display, which is updated automatically, had stalled recently. “Since the data cannot be updated automatically as a result of the breakdown, it needs to be done manually. The weather characteristics shown on the digital display were the ones dealing with the previous day’s weather. Since there was no rain on Wednesday (17), the display showed a zero mm rainfall figure,” the official from the department explained.